Cleaning out a cabinet in the garage, I came upon a box labeled “Mother’s Day cards.” It shared a shelf with other boxes variously labeled “Valentine’s Day cards,” “Birthday cards” and “Holiday cards.”
Neither my wife nor I have any notion why we keep cards from celebrations past. And yet, we do. While it makes me sound like a hoarder, I still couldn’t bring myself to throw them out.
I don’t imagine that future generations will sort through the cards looking for artifacts from an era long gone by. And yet, for me, they have a curious sentimental value. They’re just cards from the drugstore, but they also carry as much meaning as finding a long-lost tomb in the Egyptian desert.
The history of the holiday card is unexpectedly recent. They date back to 1843, when Sir Henry Cole – who pushed through a bill lowering the cost of postage in Britain to a penny (the “Penny Post”) – commissioned artist John Callcott Horsley to create a card in order to encourage greater use of the British postal service. The advent of cards worked wonders, as they became a standard for Christmas that year.
It took a long time for cards to be used for Mother’s Day, simply because Mother’s Day didn’t exist until 1914 – not because no one had thought of it, but because our leaders at the time were largely opposed to the idea.
In 1908, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother’s Day an official holiday. You read that right – Congress voted against motherhood. They thought the notion was a joke, and argued more than a little absurdly that it would lead to more holidays, like Mother-in-Law’s Day. (You think we’ve got an obstructionist Congress now? Given the opportunity, they probably would have voted against the flag and apple pie as well!)
But thanks to the creator of Mother’s Day – peace activist Anna Jarvis – in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson sidestepped Congress with a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May…
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